Ducky mechanical keyboards

[Paul]

The Ducky DK9008 is 150 UK pounds in England -- approx $225? So my
arithmetic ain't too good!


I've successfully cleared my desk of wires, and notice these have a USB
connection. Does nobody make a wireless version?

There is some interesting info here. The type of Cherry MX key switches
makes a difference (the switches have slightly different operating
principles). They also mention alternate suppliers to Ducky.

http://peterhallam.com.au/which-mechanical-keyboard-switch-should-i-get-cherry-mx-red-keyswitch/

It the key switches only have two wires each, then more encoder
implementations should be available. Like, doing a wireless one.
Having fancy LEDs on the keys, would not do wonders for battery
life.

Paul

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The matrix scanner already has a solution for bounce. it has a
debounce built into the scanning method. On my home-made keyboard,
the key closure must be present for three consecutive scanning
cycles, to be detected as a closure.

Time-based debounce isn't as good as two-switch debounce.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Same here. Keyboards are (like MS-DOS) a classic example of
"suboptimization" in which the best is known, but the cheaper second-
best drives it off the market. The AT keyboard layout (F-keys in two
columns at the left, balancing the numerical keypad on the right) is
the best for touch typists. The mechanical keyboard is better than
the "chiclet" keyboard for all typists (thus IBM/Lenovo prefers it
albeit Gateway does not) and the Northgate Omnikey was the
most popular mechanical keyboard. But vendors discarded the
AT layout and Northgate went bankrupt although a million users were
glad to pay $75-100 for a KB rather than $25: but the cheaper
rubbish not merely dominated the supply chain, it became 99 per
cent of the supply chain. The best mechanical AT keyboards,
the commonest type in 1990, thus became a rare "custom" product
available only at $200.

The thing is the average person simply doesn't realize how much
superior the good keyboards are. A lot of them also don't type enough
to make it worthwhile to them.

 

[Astropher]

The Ducky DK9008 is 150 UK pounds in England -- approx $225? So my
arithmetic ain't too good!

I've successfully cleared my desk of wires, and notice these have a USB
connection. Does nobody make a wireless version?
--

Recently I have seen news of a couple of mech keyboards with wireless
and backlighting. One that I recall is a thing called a "Morphling"
(Chinese).

A 104 key backlit keyboard would use a significant amount of power, so
you probably have to turn the back light function off in order to get
useful running times from the battery which kind of defeats the purpose
of backlighting.

I think the prices of mech keyboards are a bit too high currently. They
are becoming increasingly popular as more people discover the joys of
typing on nice switches. Larger production volumes should drive the
prices down, but what has happened is that the manufacturers are
maintaining their high prices by way of adding useless stuff like gold
plated USB connectors, braided USB cables. Even the Chinese
manufacturers (Keycool, Noppoo, Plum etc )are pricing their gear at
just under the price of the most expensive boards.

There is a stupidly insane enthusiast market too, where people
customise their boards with different colour key caps. You can buy
keycaps made from ABS, PBS, zinc. People pay anywhere from $3 to $10
per keycap depending on the material and the 'coolness'. I think the
manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[Flasherly]

There is a stupidly insane enthusiast market too, where people
customise their boards with different colour key caps. You can buy
keycaps made from ABS, PBS, zinc. People pay anywhere from $3 to $10
per keycap depending on the material and the 'coolness'.

They'd love me. First thing I did to my mini-Logitech RF 400 keyboard
model was take to it, a) one dollar bottle of How-Dare-You Shocking
Pink of women's nail polish, along with its counterpart, b) Glaring
Glittering Green. Masked with tape for drawing straight lines all the
critical Control keys, Functions, $etc., into a coherently logical
symbolism of Glaring Glittering and Shocking How-Dare-You.

Thanks to budget conscious buyers and Dollar General corporate
storefront for giving us great nail polish and bringing creativity
into the generally dim lighting conditions for augmenting Bats'-Cave
Keyboard Black finally within a civilized color design scheme.

 

[Robin Bignall]

Recently I have seen news of a couple of mech keyboards with wireless
and backlighting. One that I recall is a thing called a "Morphling"
(Chinese).

A 104 key backlit keyboard would use a significant amount of power, so
you probably have to turn the back light function off in order to get
useful running times from the battery which kind of defeats the purpose
of backlighting.

Yes indeed. Having an external power supply would defeat the objective
of no wires on desk.

I think the prices of mech keyboards are a bit too high currently. They
are becoming increasingly popular as more people discover the joys of
typing on nice switches. Larger production volumes should drive the
prices down, but what has happened is that the manufacturers are
maintaining their high prices by way of adding useless stuff like gold
plated USB connectors, braided USB cables. Even the Chinese
manufacturers (Keycool, Noppoo, Plum etc )are pricing their gear at
just under the price of the most expensive boards.

There is a stupidly insane enthusiast market too, where people
customise their boards with different colour key caps. You can buy
keycaps made from ABS, PBS, zinc. People pay anywhere from $3 to $10
per keycap depending on the material and the 'coolness'. I think the
manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank.

Probably. Although it is nice to own beautifully-made equipment, I'm
not a touch typist or a gamer, so I think one would be a waste of money
for me. But this is an interesting thread, and before it I had no idea
that these keyboards were available.